MP3 Review: Malka "The Constant State"

[$5 to Download // https://malkanyc.bandcamp.com/]

What actually first attracted me to the music of Malka is that they have a single- and it's the first song on this album- called "A Flock Of Crows".     For those who have never listened to Counting Crows or simply don't know this fun fact, a group of crows is actually called a "murder" and so it would be proper (and accurate) to say "A Murder Of Crows" in the same way that you would not say "A Group Of Lions" but rather "A Pride Of Lions".     I think people just tend to like that crows are called a murder because it just adds to their darkness.   I remember seeing a meme with only a few crows on it, maybe one or two, and it says "attempted murder".   Get it?  So there is that sort of humor to it that doesn't exist or seem as cool for other animal names.  (Though I've always liked that a baby Kangaroo was called a joey for some reason as well)

Luckily for Malka these songs are most excellent so I will forgive this mistake as I feel like they were too busy creating music to learn about the animal kingdom.    There is a bit of -gaze in here, something from "The Breakfast Club" perhaps and some whirring guitars overall as well.    It's quite a bit on FNL and then on the second track it kicks in and brings out something like The Beautiful Mistake and Athletics.    By the third song we can hear some dreamy psych ala Stone Temple Pilots and then the following song- "Wolves and Sheep"- has a great guitar riff breakdown.     By the sixth song he's singing in Spanish and, no, language has never been a barrier for me in music and it shouldn't be for anyone else either.

These songs have that feeling where they could be on the soundtrack to "Can't Hardly Wait" (so an obvious Replacements feel), yet they also have something else modern in them I can't quite put my finger on but that is not a bad thing.    They have that late 1980's synth rock feel also, which would be fantastic to hear on cassette as I imagine this as being the type of album you'd find for the first time on cassette and not another medium (Though vinyl would be nice as well)

I'm not sure if someone has created a label for this type of music or not because I can't keep track of such things, but Malka is one of those bands (and there aren't a lot of them, in the sense that I believe there should be more) who has more music in their songs than vocals.    If I had to pick a percentage (and I've in no way done any measurements for real just guessing here on what I've heard the times I've listened to this) I'd say it's maybe 75-80% instrumental and then 20-25% vocals.    And that's not bad because I like all types of music from the most to least vocals, but I say if you have the chops to pull off a mostly instrumental album then do it.    And Malka sets a shining example of what this music which is sometimes referred to as post rock should sound like.